“But what will you do, Asa? Where can you go?”
Asa sat up, using his cane to brace himself until he could lean on a small stack of cushions. Irrelevantly, Zahra recognized one as a castoff from the dayroom. It had a large stain on one corner where a child had spilled fruit juice on it.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” Asa said. “For a long time. I thought this day might come.”Zahra said, “I’m so sorry, Asa. Can you ever forgive me?”
“For what?” Asa asked. “It was my cause, too.”
“Was it?” she whispered.
“I’ll have to stay out of the Akros,” Asa went on. “But I can hide myself with Ritsa’s mother and her sisters, in the Medah. I won’t be the only cripple there. And Eva and her sort can use a man among them, even one like myself.”
“Will Ritsa go with you?”
Asa said, “I hope so, Zahra. She’s everything to me.”
Zahra drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. Her heart ached for Asa, and for Ishi, and for Ritsa.
“Come with me,” Asa said. “The street women know you. They’re the only people on Irustan who would never betray you.”
Zahra shook her head. “Oh, no,” she said. “They would be in danger. You know what happened to that poor woman at the Doma—it would be worse than that. And 1 could never spend my whole life like that, Asa. It would be like dying, like a slow death.” She paused. “It’s over for me, Asa.”
Asa’s voice was sharp. “No! It’s not over. Don’t say it!”
“But it’s true. There’s nowhere I can hide. Neither Pi Team nor Port Force will rest until they find me.”
“But—” Asa began.
“You already know, Asa,” she interrupted. “When Ritsa comes, go with her. I’ll wait a little, and then I’ll go to Qadir.”
“No,” Asa said simply. “I won’t go without you.”
Zahra fell silent. She was too tired even to argue. All emotion, even the pain over Ishi, drained away, and she was left with the familiar cold solace of no feeling. She and Asa sat on together, far into the night, and didn’t speak again until the girl Ritsa came to slide away the bin that hid their little den.
* * *
Ishi had no answer for Qadir when he begged her for news of Zahra. The clinic seemed jammed with people, Marcus standing wide-eyed, tall men all talking at once, their deep voices filling every corner. Lili sat unmoving at her desk. The strange men had burst through the inner door into the house, hurrying back minutes later to murmur to Samir Hilel.
Ishi stood in mute misery as Hilel, teeth gritted with distaste, examined every room in the clinic. He marched resolutely around the screens in the surgeries, opened closet doors, bent to look behind Lili’s tall desk. He lifted and then put down the wavephone. In Zahra’s office he opened her desk drawers, moved her books, shuffled through her disc files. Qadir followed him about, pale and shaking and passive. Ishi saw his shock and despair that mirrored her own. She touched her face, and found it sticky with dried tears. She pinched her cheeks, hard. The pain made her feel alive again.
You’re right, Zahra, she thought fiercely. You’re right about crying. It does no good. I won’t do it again.
She buttoned her rill and verge, and took two deep breaths. With Zahra absent, this was her clinic. Properly veiled, in control, she went to Zahra’s office. “Qadir,” she said. “What is the director looking for? Can I help?”
Qadir turned, his face full of anguish. His pupils were dilated, making his eyes almost black.
Samir Hilel was bent over Zahra’s desk, and he straightened now. “Qadir, could you ask this girl if the medicant said anything to her about Diya?”
Qadir could not speak. It was clear to Ishi that, although he was on his feet, he was in shock.
“Director Hilel,” Ishi said, “forgive me for speaking to you. I’m worried about Qadir, I’d like to put him on the medicator.”
Hilel nodded. “Yes, yes, you probably should. But, Ishi . . .”
She had turned to go, to draw Qadir away. She looked back now to see Hilel standing beside Zahra’s desk, an empty disc reader in one hand, an old Port Force manifest in the other. “Do you know that Diya is lying on his bed, unconscious?”
Ishi’s heart pounded, but her voice was even. Thank the Maker for the veil! “Yes, Director,” she said firmly. “Diya was hysterical. Screaming. The medicant gave him a sedative. He should be asleep by now.”
“Is that all she gave him?” Hilel asked.
Ishi said with asperity, “You can look at the readout for yourself, on the medicator in the large surgery.”
But this was too much for Hilel, and he shook his head, rejecting her suggestion.
Ishi took Qadir’s arm and propelled him down the short hall to the large surgery. She led him to the exam bed, but he seemed to waken suddenly at the sight of it.
“No, no, Ishi,” he said quickly. “I’m all right. I’m sorry, it’s just . . . it’s just . . .”
She looked at him closely. His pupils had begun to contract, his color to return. “You’re feeling better, then?”
“Ishi,” he said by way of answer, “they’re saying Zahra—they said she—O Prophet, I can hardly make myself speak it!” He gripped her arms until they hurt. “They’re accusing Zahra of killing people, poisoning these men! Giving them the prion disease! It can’t be true, why would it be true? Why would she do such a thing? Pi Team is coming! What will we do?”
A spasm of terror gripped Ishi’s heart. “Don’t, Qadir!”
“But they called her—Port Force, Onani, Sullivan—they’re calling her a terrorist!”
“Qadir, don’t give in to them! You have to protect Zahra!”
He released his grip on her. “Of course, Ishi, of course. It’s insane, that’s obvious. But you know what it’s like—they’ve already been to the Simah, there will be more men coming here—and I don’t know where my wife is!” Ishi was stunned to see a tear roll unimpeded down Qadir’s brown, lined cheek.
A moment later, Samir Hilel came to the door of the surgery. Ishi surreptitiously, gently, wiped the tear from Qadir’s face. He smiled at her with tremulous lips, and his skin looked sallow and worn. She thought he had aged ten years since the morning.
“Qadir, let’s go through the house again,” Hilel said brusquely. “I know how hard this is for you, and I’m very sorry. I’ll send one of my people home to Laila, ask if she has any ideas where Zahra might have gone.”
The men went through the surgery and into the house. Ishi turned back to the dispensary. Lili sat, black and brooding, at her high desk. Marcus lingered uncertainly by the door.
Ishi unbuttoned her rill. “Marcus, you can go,” she said, as if she were Zahra herself. “We won’t be seeing patients today.”
Marcus said, “I’m sorry, Ishi, really sorry. When Lili sent me—I didn’t know what it was about!”
“It’s all right, Marcus. Go now.”
Marcus fled, out the street door, to go all the way around the house to the service door. The moment he was gone Ishi turned on Lili, her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing.
“How could you?” she demanded. “You’re Zahra’s anah, and mine! How could you do this?”
Lili hissed, “Zahra deserves whatever she gets. She doesn’t follow the Second Prophet, does she? She’s broken our most sacred laws!”
“How do you know she did anything? Who are you to judge?”
Lili laughed, a nasty, short bark. “You all think I’m stupid, don’t you, old-fashioned, because I follow the laws. I was stupid at first! I thought it was just good luck for Kalen that Gadil died when he did, and I believed old Leman Bezay got what he deserved. But Binya Maris, and then Belen B’Neeli? And Zahra was so—so arrogant—she thought she could get away with it! This morning, I knew just what was up with Diya. He’s going to be your husband, and a perfect choice, as I told the chief director! But Zahra would have none of that, no, she made the chief director change his mind, and when Diy
a came back this morning I knew what would happen. So I sent Marcus to Samir Hilel! I knew if I tried to talk to Qadir he’d just deny it, wouldn’t see the facts laid out right in front of his face!”
“But Lili,” Ishi cried, “do you know what they’re saying?”
Lili sniffed, a perfect imitation of Diya. “You mean, that she’s a terrorist? What do you think a terrorist is, you little fool? Pi Team will have her before the night’s out, mark my words. She’ll end just like her teacher did, in the cells!”
Ishi’s throat went dry as dust. “What?” she asked faintly. She felt blood rushing in her ears, and she put out her hand to the wall for support. “What did you say? About Nura Issim?”
“Oh, you didn’t know that, did you? You think you know everything!” Lili exclaimed. “Nura Issim went to the cells for disobedience, and Zahra will go to the cells for breaking the sacred law. And the honor of the IbSada household will be restored! What will become of you if the IbSada name is disgraced?”
Rage pushed away Ishi’s shock. She took a step forward and leaned very close, staring at the black panels of Lili’s veil, tempted to rip them from her. “And you, Lili,” she cried. “What will become of you now? Do you think I would ever have you in my house, in my clinic? You’d better think what man is going to want you in his household, and go there!”
She whirled, her hands clenched into fists, and marched down the hall to Zahra’s office, where she slammed the door with all her strength. She leaned against the door for a long time, waiting for her heart to stop pounding. Fury and fear struggled within her. Was it true? Could it be true, that Zahra . . .
Ishi pressed her hands over her eyes, and a picture of Diya came into her mind. Nasty Diya, with his thick lips and his pale eyes. Diya, every day at her table. Diya in her bed, his hands on her body. I would have poisoned him myself! she thought.
It was a frightening idea, and it surprised her. She lowered her hands and opened her eyes.
Zahra’s office was in turmoil. Samir had left everything upside down, out of place, books and discs on the floor. Not knowing what else to do, she began to tidy the office.
She replaced the books and discs on the shelves, set the reader back into its slot, and picked up the old manifest that Hilel had dropped on the desk. She was about to throw it away when she saw that there were several numbers written on the bottom, very small, in a precise, almost delicate handwriting.
Ishi knew what a wavephone number looked like. The number for the wavephone in the clinic was written on the handset, though in larger numbers than these, and a different pattern. She had watched Diya, and sometimes Asa, use the phone at Zahra’s request, to call for a car, to call Qadir with some message, to call patients’ homes. Ishi, of course, had never touched it. She knew the penalty for such an infraction.
But this number, these elegantly written figures, tantalized her. What number was this? It had to be the reason Zahra had kept the manifest. Ishi traced the number with her finger. Someone had been here, in the office, the someone she had glimpsed from the garden. And Ishi understood immediately, intuitively, whose number this was.
She went to the door and opened it noiselessly. There was no sound from the clinic. When she went down the hall and peeked into the dispensary, Lili was no longer at her desk. Just to be sure, Ishi also checked both surgeries, and made certain the street door was locked. Then she went to the desk and stood behind it, looking down at the wavephone.
The risk at this moment did not seem so great. Men were dead, another probably dying. Zahra and Asa were fugitives. If Ishi was caught using the phone, what a small ripple it would make on this vast sea of troubles! She picked up the handset, its plastic cool in her palm. It wasn’t so very different from holding a reader. Why, then, was she forbidden to use it?
She knew the answer with a despairing certainty, and she understood also why Zahra had done what she had done. If a woman cannot use a phone, or drive, handle money, or go out of her home without a male escort, she cannot escape. She is completely controlled. Men run her world. Only death can release her.
Ishi heard no sound from the phone, but she knew the r-waves were always there, ready and waiting. She held her forefinger over the keypad,
remembering how Diya and Asa had done it. She tapped in the number from the manifest. A soft buzz tickled her ear, and then she heard a neutral voice. “Yes?”
Ishi caught her breath. She had done it. In a small, frightened voice, she said, “Is this Jin-Li Chung?”
thirty-nine
The ExtraSolar Corporation operates under the full force and faith of the governments of Earth. Offworld Port Force officers are of necessity entrusted with powers of decision in all matters that come under their purview.
—Offworld Port Force Terms of Employment
Jin-Li woke that morning with a premonition of disaster. She had gone to the reservoir with Tomas, as promised, but there had been no joy in it. She told herself she was just tired. She dressed for the gym, tunic and shorts and sweatshirt, but then she didn’t go. She had no appetite for breakfast or lunch. Onani’s little wavephone lay on her table, a useless reminder of all that had happened. Sitting cross-legged on the apartment floor, she stared out at the pale hot sky, listening to the cooler’s hum, trying not to hear the voice of warning inside her head.
The crisis was over. Onani would not bother her again, and Zahra was safe. She wouldn’t be seeing her, not privately anyway, but at least the danger was past. It was finished. So Jin-Li told herself repeatedly as she sat on through the wasted morning and the long, still afternoon.
Hunger called her out of her black mood as the shadows began to stretch beyond her balcony. She stretched her stiff legs. Tomorrow she would return Onani’s wavephone. Tonight she would go to the meal hall, eat dinner, resume a normal routine. She went to the door, and it was already open when the phone buzzed.
She stopped, one foot over the sill.
It buzzed again, and her premonition solidified into fear. The door closed as she went back to pick up the phone. “Yes?”
“Is this Jin-Li Chung?” It was an Irustani accent, the voice light, almost childish. And unmistakably female.
Jin-Li almost broke the connection immediately. It was worth an Irustani woman’s life to use a wavephone. She had never heard that Pi Team monitored r-wave transmissions, but it was possible. They were relentless in their pursuit of lawbreakers.
Jin-Li hesitated, but the youth of the voice persuaded her. “This is Jin-Li,” “Can you help me?”
“What’s happened?”
“Pi Team is after Zahra!”
“Where is she?”
The young voice trembled. “I don’t know—and these men, they’re everywhere!”
Jin-Li said quickly, “Don’t say any more, it’s not safe. Put down the phone.” She paused. “I’ll do all I can.”
She had no idea what that might be. But she would try.
She grabbed keys and cap from their hook. At the last moment she remembered to toss the wavephone onto the floor of the closet. She wouldn’t want Onani to know where she was. Then she went leaping down the stairs, heart thudding, to the cart.
On Port Force grounds there was nothing to indicate anything amiss, but in the Akros, the small black cars of Pi Team squads were everywhere.
The news spread across the city with the falling dusk. Almost all traffic ceased. Even Irustani innocent of any crime were loath to be stopped and questioned by Pi Team. The lack of cars and cycles made the Port Force cart conspicuous. Jin-Li drove in a large circle, and left the cart in an alley a full kilometer away. Keeping to the shadows, she worked her way on foot toward the IbSada house. The gym shoes made only the softest of sounds on the empty streets. Streetlamps flickered on, and Jin-Li skirted their pools of light. Windows were alight in the houses, but the residents kept judiciously within doors, curtains drawn, doors undoubtedly locked.
Jin-Li reached the house at last and circled it, moving from the shelter of
met-olives to the shadows of mock roses, clinging to the garden wall. It took a long time. Men came and went from the front door. The moons had waned to only two, a quarter and a half, and they gave very little light. While Jin-Li was making a second round, Pi Team departed, leaving guards at each entrance. Voices sounded often from their wavephones.
The guards wore the black shirt and trousers of Pi Team, and held long rifles across their chests. Jin-Li’s second circle ended at a door where the garden wall met the house. It looked like a delivery door, set close to the street. A man of a Pi Team squad leaned against the lintel, looking out into the dappled light of the streetlamps.
Opposite the guard, Jin-Li knelt in darkness on ground still warm with the day’s heat. There was no way to know where Zahra might be. Without doubt, the house would have been searched top to bottom. She devoutly hoped Zahra had somehow gotten away. She had no weapon but feet and fists, and the Pi Team rifles were projectile weapons of a kind illegal everywhere on Earth. Jin-Li waited, praying something would happen before daylight revealed her there, squatting beneath a mock rose. The thought of prayer brought a grim smile. Just being here, crouched in the dirt, was an act of faith, something she didn’t usually indulge in.
When something did happen, it wasn’t anything Jin-Li had expected. A long-skirted figure approached the Pi Team guard and began to speak. Jin-Li strained to hear the voices. There was a murmur that might have been, “Help you, kir?” and an answering laugh in bass tones. The two figures came together, and then vanished into the darkness beneath the garden wall.
A moment later the service door opened. The hall light was off, and the three people who came out were barely visible in the dimness. One walked unevenly, aided by a cane, leaning on another, smaller figure. The third was tall and graceful.
Sounds came from the garden wall, moans, grunts, a lascivious breath. The Pi Team member was fully occupied. The fugitives hurried to take advantage of the guard’s distraction, but they could move no faster than their slowest companion.
The Terrorists of Irustan Page 34
